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To cite this article: Vaille Dawson & Katherine Carson (2016): Using climate change scenarios
to assess high school students’ argumentation skills, Research in Science & Technological
Education, DOI: 10.1080/02635143.2016.1174932
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Research in Science & Technological Education, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02635143.2016.1174932
Introduction
The current generation of young people will face a number of complex global issues that
will require international collaboration. According to the United Nations Millenium Project’s
global futures research (Glenn, Gordon, and Florescu 2014, 15), three of the most important
issues facing humanity in the twenty-first century are ‘sustainable development and climate
change, clean water, and population and resources’. It is therefore imperative that school
science education provides students with opportunities to develop the necessary skills,
understandings and values to be able to address these complex issues.
Students need skills of argumentation and socioscientific reasoning about socioscientific
issues to make informed evidence-based decisions that take account of the complexity of
issues, accuracy and tentative nature of evidence and the views of multiple stakeholders
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(Sadler, Barab, and Scott 2007). Yet, some teachers are reluctant to teach argumentation
about socioscientific issues, in part, because of a lack of suitable resources and difficulties
in assessing and discriminating the quality of their students’ arguments (Nielson 2012). One
way of developing students’ abilities to grapple with complex issues is for them to practise
decision-making in their science classes. In doing so, students can use their scientific knowl-
edge to discuss and debate their views about real-life situations. To do this, teachers need
age-appropriate curriculum resources that are relevant and can engage students in debate
and argument.
In reviewing the literature, it seemed that much of the research on socioscientific issues
and argumentation with middle school students focusses on genetics and reproductive
technology contexts with only a few studies (e.g. Bravo-Torija and Jimenez-Aleixandre 2012)
focussing on climate change issues and argumentation. This may be because genetics has
been taught in schools for many decades and issues are considered personally relevant to
students. However, given the global significance of climate change, it was considered an
appropriate context for this study. The research presented in this paper aims to address the
perceived difficulties associated with both teaching and assessing argumentation about
socioscientific issues in science classrooms. The aim of this study was to trial scenarios about
the socioscientific issue of climate change with Year 10 (15–16-year-old) students in Perth,
Western Australia to determine whether they could be used by teachers to both develop
and assess students’ abilities to construct an argument.
Theoretical framework
Scientific literacy
The term, scientific literacy, encapsulates the desired outcomes of school science education
(Fensham 2014; Hodson 2013; Laugksch 2000; Roberts 2007; Shen 1975). Scientific literacy,
in contrast to specialist scientific training for a science career, is an appreciation of the nature,
practice and limitations of science, along with sufficient knowledge of science content to
be able to make informed evidence-based personal decisions and contribute to community
decision-making about scientific issues. These scientific issues may relate to personal or
individual decisions such as vaccinations, use of mobile phones and eating of genetically
modified foods or societal issues such as population growth, global climate change and land
clearing. It is acknowledged that personal decisions may also impact on the communities
that individuals are part of. For example, an individual’s decision not to vaccinate their child
Research in Science & Technological Education 3
against whooping cough may increase the susceptibility of their local community to an
outbreak of the disease.
There are many intertwined elements of scientific literacy that are considered important
outcomes of science education and have been the focus of educational research in recent
years. These include science inquiry (Lederman and Lederman 2012), nature of science (Abd-
El-Khalick and Lederman 2000; Kolstø 2001), socioscientific issues (Hodson 2013; Sadler
2009), argumentation (Newton, Driver, and Osborne 1999; Duschl and Osborne 2002), crit-
ical-thinking skills (Ennis 1985), higher order thinking skills (Zohar 2013) and values and
ethical issues (Reiss 2008). This paper focusses on two elements of scientific literacy: socio-
scientific issues and argumentation (Venville and Dawson 2010).
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Socioscientific issues
Socioscientific issues (SSIs) are topics that have a scientific basis and are important, or of
concern, to human society (Sadler and Dawson 2012). SSIs are controversial with a range of
views expressed by individuals. They are often debated in public media outlets with scientific
perspectives and evidence, sometimes in equal competition with non-scientific perspectives
and evidence. Often the underpinning science is multidisciplinary, complex, emerging and
contested. SSIs may have ethical, social, economic, legal, political or religious dimensions.
In making decisions about SSIs, individuals may need to consider more than scientific
evidence. They may need to look at ethical, economic or societal impacts. Individuals may
need to: weigh up risks and benefits; cope with competing demands; consider the rights of
multiple stakeholders; use ethical principles; and compromise in order to choose from a
range of choices and make a decision. The views of an individual or community group may
change as new evidence (scientific and non-scientific) emerges.
Engaging with SSIs in school science can provide students with the opportunity to
develop several aspects of scientific literacy, including an understanding of the nature of
science (Khishe and Lederman 2006), decision-making skills (Patronis, Potari, and
Spiliotopoulou 1999; Saunders and Rennie 2013), informal reasoning skills (Sadler and Zeidler
2005), media literacy (Hodson 2013) and an understanding of the role of risk and uncertainty
in decision-making (Christensen 2009). Importantly, SSIs can be stimulating and engaging
and increase students’ motivation and interest in school science by showing ‘real life’ science
(Bulte et al. 2006). Students can also practise discussion and decision-making in a safe envi-
ronment and develop their argumentation skills (von Aufschnaiter et al. 2008; Grace 2009).
Finally, engaging with SSIs has been shown to improve students’ conceptual understanding
of science (Dori, Tal, and Tsaushu 2003; Dori, Tal, and Tsaushu 2003; Zohar and Nemet 2002).
Argumentation
Put simply, an argument is an assertion with supporting information or, alternatively, a claim
with reasons to support the claim. The British philosopher Stephen Toulmin (1958) was highly
influential in providing a structural framework that could be used both to analyse arguments
and to develop skills in generating arguments. The parts of Toulmin’s model included a claim
(assertion), data (relevant evidence), warrant (linking of claim and data), backing (underlying
theory or assumptions to support warrants), qualifier (conditions under which claim is sup-
ported) and rebuttals (conditions where the claim is not supported).
4 V. Dawson and K. Carson
Almost 15 years ago, several researchers (Duschl and Osborne 2002; Jiménez-Aleixandre,
Rodriguez, and Duschl 2000; Newton, Driver, and Osborne 1999) presented a compelling case
to support the introduction of argumentation as an essential skill for school science education.
They proposed that the process of argumentation through the construction of arguments is
a central tenet of the practice of science. That is, scientific knowledge is socially constructed
through critique, replication and evaluation. Arguments to explain scientific phenomena are
generated and made public for examination through the process of peer review.
Given the importance of argumentation in constructing and justifying science knowledge,
these researchers called for argumentation to be taught in school science. Osborne, Erduran,
and Simon (2004) developed and implemented the professional learning programme and
curriculum resource, Ideas, evidence and argument in science, to support the introduction of
argumentation in school science in the UK. The resource provided teachers with activities
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to support the development of students’ argumentation about scientific topics and SSIs.
Despite a strong rationale for introducing argumentation and the availability of resources,
uptake by science teachers internationally has been piecemeal. This is partly because school
science education is still seen by many people as the transfer of canonical knowledge from
teacher to student. Even where teachers are willing to teach argumentation skills, there are
concerns about how to teach and assess them (Nielsen 2012).
Another issue is that assessment of the quality of an argument has proved to be prob-
lematic with different authors using a variety of approaches to address the issue (Erduran
2008; Sampson and Clarke 2008). When using Toulmin’s framework, it can be difficult to
separate data from warrants and warrants from backings. As a result, some classification
systems collapse them (e.g. Zohar and Nemet 2002). A further weakness of examining the
argument structure alone is that the content of the components may be incorrect or irrele-
vant. Methods of differentiating the quality of arguments include: using levels to ascribe the
degree of Toulmin’s components present (e.g. Cetin 2014; Erduran, Simon, and Osborne
2004; Simon and Amos 2011); examining informal reasoning types (e.g. Sadler and Zeidler
2005); analysis of the content (e.g. Christenson, Rundgren, and Zeidler 2014; Zohar and
Nemet 2002); use of learning progressions (e.g. Berland and McNeill 2010); and analysis of
the complexity of justifications or grounds (e.g. Sadler and Fowler 2006).
In our previous research, we used two complementary methods to classify students’ written
arguments. Levels, similar to those of Erduran et al. (2004), and informal reasoning types of
rational, emotive and intuitive (Sadler and Zeidler 2005), were used concurrently to evaluate
the quality of students’ arguments (Venville and Dawson 2010). In that study, we recognised
the weakness of using Toulmin’s framework alone to evaluate the quality of arguments.
Nevertheless, the advantage of Toulmin’s framework is that it is not context-specific and can
be used to teach school students the components of a quality argument. We also found that
rational arguments were associated with the use of backings and qualifiers.
Argumentation about SSIs form part of many national curriculum documents, although
the term may not be used. For example, the Australian Curriculum in science (Australian
Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA] 2015) has a Strand called Science
as a Human Endeavour described as:
This strand highlights the development of science as a unique way of knowing and doing, and
the role of science in contemporary decision making and problem solving. It acknowledges that
in making decisions about science practices and applications, ethical and social implications
must be taken into account.
(ACARA 2015, 4)
Research in Science & Technological Education 5
The science syllabus for lower secondary students in Singapore (Curriculum Planning and
Development Division 2012, 5), within the domain of Science in daily life includes ‘making
informed decisions that are related to science and technology, e.g. consumption of GM food,
health choices’. In the English science curriculum (Department for Education 2013, 2), one
of the aims is that students ‘understand the uses and implications of science, today and for
the future’.
Climate change
The SSI that is the focus of this study is climate change. Climate change was chosen because
it is a topic of constant debate and dissent in the media and politics with a powerful lobby
group of sceptics denying the existence of global warming or an association between
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increased human use of fossil fuels, increased atmospheric greenhouse gases and increased
global temperature. In Australia, where this study was conducted, the average increase in
temperature in the past 100 years is higher than the global increase and there is reduced
rainfall in the southern regions (Bureau of Meteorology and Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organisation [CSIRO] 2014). The topic of climate change is of interest to
students (Dawson and Carson 2013) and the underlying science concepts (e.g. temperature,
atmosphere, electromagnetic radiation, gases and energy) form part of most high school
science courses.
The research question addressed in this study is:
Can SSI scenarios about climate change be developed and used to assess students’ argu-
mentation skills?
Method
This research employs a qualitative case study method (Merriam 2009) to examine the devel-
opment and use of scenarios based on climate change to develop and assess students’
argumentation skills. The research design reported here comprises two phases. In Phase 1,
climate change scenarios were developed and trialled with Year 10 students using writing
frames with scaffold questions in order to determine their suitability for students and develop
a scoring rubric based on categories. In Phase 2, Year 10 students responded to the scenarios
by providing written arguments without the writing frames. The arguments were assessed
using Toulmin’s argumentation pattern (Erduran et al. 2004) and the scoring rubric from
Phase 1.
source to reduce use of fossil fuels) and waste to energy plants (burning rubbish as an
alternative energy source). The scenarios are described in Appendix 1.
The Wind farm scenario used local media information about an alternative energy com-
pany, Moonies Hill Energy, who were given permission to commence construction of a wind
farm in the Great Southern area of Western Australia. The project has generated considerable
opposition from local landowners and farmers because of possible adverse economic and
health effects. Students were asked to decide whether they would allow two wind turbines
to be built on their property if they were a local sheep and wheat farmer. The Hydrogen fuel
bus scenario is based on a three-year international study of nine cities (including Perth) that
trialled three Hydrogen fuel buses and compared them with regular diesel fuel buses.
Although the trial was considered a success by the government-owned bus service, the
government decided not to proceed beyond the trial because of higher costs. Students were
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asked whether the government made the correct decision and to justify their claim. The
third scenario is based on waste to energy plants where more than 40 countries have adopted
the burning of rubbish to generate electricity as well as reduce landfill. Plans are in progress
to have a plant built in Western Australia.
Once the topics were selected, the scenarios were written so that the literacy demands
would enable the scenario to be understood by most Year 10 students. The scenarios were
brief (100–250 words), used simple language, were scientifically correct and presented suf-
ficient content to understand the issues. Students were asked to make a decision from the
perspective of a stakeholder (e.g. farmer). It was intended that students would draw on their
own knowledge about energy sources, climate change and the greenhouse effect rather
than merely reproduce information from the scenario.
In Phase 1, the students were asked to read the scenario and the question and make a
decision of ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘I don’t know’. Students then used writing frames with scaffold ques-
tions to generate as many reasons as possible. Questions included: ‘What are the possible
advantages of your decision?’; ‘What are the possible disadvantages of your decision?’; and
‘What would you say to someone who disagrees with you?’. Students had ample time and
space to record their answers. All responses were typed up and analysed using a grounded
theory approach to identify categories based on the content of the responses. All responses
were then analysed according to the categories.
Table 1. Number of schools and students participating in each phase and scenario.
Number of students
Wind farm Hydrogen fuel bus
School Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 1 Phase 2
A 23
B 44 48
C 30 27
D 33 33
E 28 28
Total 72 63 98 61
disagreement, the two researchers discussed to reach consensus. The most common point
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of difference was between Level 2 and Level 3 where a backing statement was not explicitly
linked to data. After consultation, it was agreed to code conservatively. That is, the backing
needed to be explicitly linked to the data to be coded as a Level 3 argument.
Sample
After obtaining university and school sector ethics approval, 162 Year 10 (15 years old) stu-
dents from five schools participated in the study during 2014. Year 10 students were selected
because climate change and the greenhouse effect are part of the Earth and Space Sciences
content strand of the Australian Curriculum in science (ACARA 2015). The schools were
selected through purposive sampling for diversity in school type (independent (2), Catholic
(1) and government (2)), and socioeconomic status (high, medium and low). Table 1 sum-
marises the number of students from each school that participated in each phase of the
research. The scenarios completed by students is also presented. Although some students
participated in Phase 1 and Phase 2, no student completed the same scenario in both phases.
In Phase 1, a total of 72 students participated in the Wind farm scenario and 98 students
participated in the Hydrogen fuel bus scenario. In Phase 2, 63 students completed the Wind
farm scenario and 61 students completed the Hydrogen fuel bus scenario. In total, 135
students completed the Wind farm scenario and 159 students completed the Hydrogen fuel
bus scenario in Phase 1 and Phase 2.
Results
Prior to testing with students, the three scenarios were presented to five science teachers
who had previously attended a Professional Development workshop on using argumentation
to teach SSIs in the science classroom. These teachers provided feedback on the content
and terminology of the scenarios. Based on their feedback, slight text changes were made.
For example, in the Hydrogen fuel bus scenario, the abbreviation of carbon dioxide equiv-
alent was changed from CO2e to CO2 eq and a definition of the term was added. Teachers
were given the opportunity to select which scenario(s) they thought would be of most
interest to their students. Only one teacher agreed to use the Waste to energy plant scenario.
Although the students in that class discussed the scenario, few students wrote responses
that could be used to construct a scoring rubric. Thus, only the results of the Wind farm
scenario and the Hydrogen fuel bus scenario are presented here. One of the schools had
8 V. Dawson and K. Carson
boarding facilities with rural students from South West farming communities who may be
affected by the proposed wind turbines. In Western Australia, many students travel on school
buses. Thus, the Hydrogen fuel bus scenario has relevance to students.
order of decreasing frequency. The most frequently cited categories related to agriculture,
environmental factors, energy and the economy. Despite the potential (although scientifi-
cally unproven) impact on health of noise, human factors were mentioned infrequently (less
than 25%). Ethical reasons were rarely offered. Students cited up to six different categories
with the majority of students citing two (36%) or three (31%) categories.
The most frequently cited category, regardless of claim, was agriculture, which is not
surprising given the context of building wind turbines on farming land used for crops and
sheep. Students cited both advantages and disadvantages. Agricultural reasons related to
impact on productive land area; the size and location of the turbine; impact on crop pro-
duction; effect on aerial spraying and fires; and impact on crops and livestock during the
building or maintenance of the turbines. Examples included, ‘There is more space for pro-
ductive farmland’ and ‘It will be harder to spray pesticides on their crops’. Agricultural reasons
predominated with ‘no’ and ‘I don’t know’ claims.
Environmental arguments were cited more frequently for ‘yes’ claims and included general
terms such as ‘eco-friendly’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ as well as specific reasons based
on: reductions in the use of fossil fuels with a resultant decrease on greenhouse gas emis-
sions; impact on climate change and the greenhouse effect; and impact on animals, livestock
and local birdlife. For example, ‘It would help decrease the amount of carbon dioxide emis-
sions which will lower the enhanced greenhouse effect, lowering global warming’. Responses
in the energy category were also more common for ‘yes’ responses and related to the use of
renewable sources of energy for electricity that are sustainable, clean and efficient. For exam-
ple, ‘Wind power is more sustainable than some of its alternatives’.
Economic reasons were cited for both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses and related to cost or profit
for farmers, free electricity or the negative impact of wind turbines affecting their property
or crop value. Human factors and ethical reasons, although occurring infrequently, were
Table 2. Categories used by students (n = 135) to justify claims about wind farm scenario.
Category Number of students (%) n = 135
Agriculture 100 (74)
Environmental 83 (62)
Energy 64 (47)
Economic 63 (47)
Human factors 31 (23)
Ethical 11 (8)
No response 9 (7)
Research in Science & Technological Education 9
usually associated with a ‘yes’ claim. The reasons in the human factor category were often
negative, but seemed to be outweighed by environmental and agricultural reasons. Human
factors related to aesthetics, noise, health and safety. Many students stated that they were
‘ugly’. Ethical reasons included aspects of social justice and responsibility. For example:
‘Because I live in this world I want to help as much as possible’.
As stated in the method, the Phase 2 responses were analysed for argumentation levels
based on the presence of a claim, data, backings, qualifier or rebuttal. The number and
percentage of argumentation levels expressed by 63 students about the Wind farm scenario
is summarised in Table 3. An example of each level is provided. Two-thirds (68%) of the
students presented a Level 2 argument with one quarter (24%) presenting a Level 3 or Level
4 argument.
Table 4. Categories used by students (n = 159) to justify claims about hydrogen fuel bus scenario.
Category Number of students (%) n = 159
Economic 123 (77)
Environmental 104 (65)
Human Factors 40 (25)
Ethical 21 (13)
Other 9 (6)
No response 13 (8)
of the buses increased dramatically then the price of a bus ticket would need to increase as
well’.
Environmental responses were more frequently cited by students whose claim was ‘no’.
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Discussion
Developing students’ scientific literacy is a desired outcome of school science education.
The ability to make and justify decisions about controversial issues using rational, scientific
and coherent arguments is an important aspect of scientific literacy. In addition, sociosci-
entific issues, argumentation and decision-making appear explicitly in many international
curriculum documents. Yet, changes in teachers’ practice has been slow (Hodson 2013).
Some teachers have criticised or avoided the teaching of socioscientific issues in school
science because of perceived difficulties with teaching and assessment. Similarly, despite
the importance of argumentation skills, assessment or measurement of students’ argument
quality has proved problematic for teachers (Neilson 2012). Yet, if science education research-
ers want to bring about sustained classroom change, they have a role in providing teachers
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with access to assessment items about socioscientific issues that are fair, simple, relevant
and discriminating.
The findings of this paper indicate that it is possible to develop scenarios that can be used
by teachers to discriminate the quality of their students’ argumentation skills. As outlined
in the literature review, science education researchers have used a range of methods to
evaluate students’ argumentation skills. However, many of these methods are only appro-
priate in research contexts, as the degree of analysis required would be unrealistic, difficult
and time-consuming for many teachers. Sampson and Clarke (2008) have recommended
that three criteria be considered in assessment of scientific argumentation. The criteria are
structure (Toulmin), content (science) and nature of the justification (coherence, logical rea-
soning). Our assessment structure comprises these three criteria. Sadler, Barab, and Scott
(2007) propose a theoretical framework for socioscientific reasoning which is the ideal type
of reasoning displayed by students making decisions about socioscientific issues. The criteria
they identify are scepticism about the data, understanding the complexity of issues, exam-
ining the issues from the perspective of multiple stakeholders and understanding that more
data may be needed. Our coding scheme is congruent with this framework.
Scenarios about climate change socioscientific issues can be used by teachers in various
ways. They can be used to provide students with opportunities to engage with socioscientific
issues as a class, small group or individually. Scenarios with probing questions (e.g. writing
frames) can be used to develop students’ argumentation skills through explicit scaffolding
to develop a quality argument comprising qualifiers, backings and rebuttals. The role of the
teacher in encouraging scepticism, questioning of evidence, perspective-taking and relevant
justifications is also important.
In this study, the aim was to develop and trial scenarios in a climate change context that
could be used by teachers to easily assess their students’ argumentation skills. In selecting
an appropriate scenario to trial, we chose topics that were authentic, relevant to students,
controversial, fitted with the existing science curriculum and were based on science. Three
scenarios were developed of which two (Wind farm and Hydrogen fuel bus) were selected
for use by science teachers to trial with their Year 10 students. Although the Waste to Energy
Plant scenario fulfilled the development criteria, the teachers, when given a choice chose
not to use it. Students’ argumentation skills were assessed using two methods. The students’
written arguments were coded into Levels (1 to 4) depending on the structural components
present (i.e. Claim, data/warrant, backing, qualifier and rebuttal). Arguments were also cat-
egorised into the types of reasons (e.g. environmental, economic).
12 V. Dawson and K. Carson
We propose that scenarios of the type reported in this paper can be used by teachers to
assess their students’ argumentation skills about socioscientific issues. Brief scenarios that
require a decision (claim) and justifications can be easily and quickly scored using Toulmin’s
argumentation pattern and a predetermined rubric to add the number of types of reasons.
A higher quality answer would include backings, qualifier and rebuttals, types of reasons
that consider multiple and relevant perspectives (e.g. environment vs. agriculture) and sci-
entifically correct reasons.
It was found that, regardless of the scenario or claim, more than three quarters of the
socioscientific arguments were Level 2 (claim and data/warrant). There is insufficient
evidence to determine whether the argument level is due to the scenario or students’
reasoning ability. The arguments were generated without questions to prompt backings,
qualifiers and rebuttals. We deliberately trialled the scenarios with students who had
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not been explicitly taught argumentation to determine if they were able to generate an
argument that could be scored. The findings are similar to our previous work in a genetics
context (Venville and Dawson 2010). It is hoped that students’ argumentation structure
would improve after explicit instruction as we have previously shown. Teachers could
use one scenario as a diagnostic test to generate interest and determine students’ pre-ex-
isting skills and the second scenario as a summative assessment following instruction.
We acknowledge that with this sample of students, no Level 4 arguments were generated
for the Hydrogen fuel bus scenario. This is not surprising given that students have not
been taught about backings, qualifiers and rebuttals. Given that nine of the students
could provide a backing OR a qualifier, it is likely that after instruction, students could
provide a Level 4 argument.
Note that unlike scientific arguments, the purpose of the assessment was not to elicit a
particular claim that is correct or incorrect. Indeed, it is the controversial nature of the sce-
nario that makes it a socioscientific issue that will generate alternative claims. It is the written
evidence provided by students to support their claim that is assessed. Nor is a particular
type of reason valued over another (e.g. economic vs. environmental). Although teachers
may have their own personal perspectives about the value of types of reasons (perhaps
favouring environmental reasons over economic reasons, or ethical over human aesthetic
reasons), it is desirable that students consider multiple and relevant perspectives (Sadler,
Barab, and Scott 2007).
The next stages of this research study involve a larger more diverse sample of students
with teachers using the scoring rubric and Toulmin’s argument structure to score their stu-
dents’ arguments. In addition, the scenarios will be used before and after explicit instruction
on argumentation to determine whether any changes can be measured.
Conclusion
In conclusion, carefully designed scenarios can be used by teachers in science classrooms,
not only to engage students in debate about socioscientific issues, but to readily assess their
students’ argumentation skills. Climate change scenarios can be used to assess students’
argumentation skills in traditional pen and paper tests alongside test items to assess scientific
understanding.
Research in Science & Technological Education 13
Acknowledgement
This research was supported under Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme
(project number 130103035). The authors would also like to thank participating students and their
teachers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Opponents of Waste to Energy plants criticise possible toxic emissions from burning the rubbish lead-
ing to both public health and environmental concerns. Also they believe this process does nothing
to reduce the amount of waste produced by the population and discourages people from recycling.
The first Waste to Energy plant to be built in Australia is being planned for Port Hedland, with another
one planned for Kwinana. The plant in Kwinana expects to produce enough electricity to provide power
to between 55,000 and 127,000 homes, as well as disposing of 300,000 tonnes of rubbish.
If you were the mayor, would you allow a Waste to Energy plant to be built in your Council area?
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